


Spoiled the Bunch

by literaryspell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark, Gen, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-23 06:45:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryspell/pseuds/literaryspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all starts with Al. James takes it further. Lily, though…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spoiled the Bunch

**Author's Note:**

> A heartfelt thanks to a brand new fandom friend, [](http://secretsalex.livejournal.com/profile)[**secretsalex**](http://secretsalex.livejournal.com/), for her thoughtful and thorough beta on this one. Also to [](http://lady-of-clunn.livejournal.com/profile)[**lady_of_clunn**](http://lady-of-clunn.livejournal.com/) for the killer britpick and awesome hooker vocab ;), and not least to [](http://melusinahp.livejournal.com/profile)[**melusinahp**](http://melusinahp.livejournal.com/), whom I fangirl very much and I still haven’t gotten over seeing her comments on my writing. And of course, all my love to [](http://snarkyscorp.livejournal.com/profile)[**snarkyscorp**](http://snarkyscorp.livejournal.com/) for running [](http://nextgendarkfest.livejournal.com/profile)[**nextgendarkfest**](http://nextgendarkfest.livejournal.com/) for which this was written—one of my favourite's ever—and being such a supportive and inclusive friend.

The Potter house was quiet at night.

They were, the lot of them, heavy sleepers. Through the front door crashing open, not one Potter stirred. A knock, desperate in its attempt to be both loud and quiet, was enough to wake up James Potter, but only just.

"Yeah?" he muttered into his pillow, mind still trying to convince himself his dreams had been real. He fought it.

"Can I come in?" came Al Potter's wavering voice. "Right fucking now?"

"Go on, then." James shook his head, trying to clear it. He squinted into the brightness spilling through the opening door. The room was dimly lit by the hovering light spell their father cast in the hallway at night. His brother was limned in gold, shadowed in black.

"James… oh, god, James, I did something." Al slipped into the room. James could see him holding his breath as he closed the door. They paused, waiting in haggard silence but no one else had woken. "Something… something horrible." He was shaking.

James straightened, now more awake than he was sure he'd ever been. There was something surreal about the moment. Everyone else's brother did stupid, horrible things, but not Al. Nothing _that bad_ could happen in their family. "Come here," he said, patting the bed. "What happened? And don't fucking well walk around it, tell me now." He hated it when Al knew something he didn’t, anything. That moment before knowing a secret.

Al took faltering steps but made it to the edge of the bed where he sat, unsteady. James noticed his robes were torn and looked damp. The room was without sound for just long enough to hear a drop of water— _oh, god, not water_ —hit the hardwood.

"I killed him," Al said, voice low. His eyes were wide, glowing in the almost-dark. "He came at me, he wanted my money, my wand. He had a knife, James, a knife! I just—" A sob chocked him. "I thought about that knife going into me, and how much it would hurt, and I cast a spell." He looked at James, lips blue and shivering. "I don't even _remember_ what spell."

James knew there were only so many spells Al knew that could kill a person, but there were many more that could _cause_ death, simple spells that first-years learned. Hell, a _Wingardium Leviosa_ a few storeys up would do it, an _aguamenti_ into the mouth, a tripping jinx at the top of the stairs...

"Did anyone see you?" he asked. He was the big brother. He had to, before all else, make sure Al would be all right.

"James, didn’t you hear what I—?" Al cut himself off, dry heaving. "I killed someone."

There was something about that, about the image of it, that struck James. Al, his little brother, who used to get scabs on his nose from too much sun, who James once caught flicking his boogies at girls during lunch at Hogwarts, who James had held as a baby and supposedly claimed as his own, pushing their mum away.

Al had struck a man down. Al had _ended a life._ Al had taken from someone something so intrinsic, something so _basic._ James could feel his own blood pounding.

"Yes, you did. And there's nothing you can do now. So get yourself together and tell me what happened."

*

James didn't like it when Al knew something he didn’t.

*

The key, James knew, was that no one see him. That was how Al had got away with it. One witness meant he was as good as dead. No one could see, could hear, could suspect. It couldn’t be anyone they knew. No motive. No opportunity—Al would be a fantastic fucking alibi, he was sure. They would do anything for each other. Al just didn’t know it yet. But James, James knew it—he'd seen the gleam in Al's eyes when he'd described it, when he'd told James about how the man had fairly burst open, how the life hadn't slipped but _exploded_ from his eyes. A gleam that was more than tears.

She was easy enough to find—in Knockturn Alley, those who wanted to be seen, were, and those who didn’t—like James—were invisible.

"How much for suck and pink?" he said, lowering his voice, his face hidden under a wide hood.

"Twenty Galleons," she said, smirking. Her fingernails clicked when she tossed her long brown hair over her shoulder.

"Fifteen," he countered, just because it was the thing to do.

She rolled her eyes but turned down an alley. He followed. Her high-heeled boots sparked the cobblestone as she walked, a trick to make him focus on her, to make her easy to follow. A door appeared in the alley wall and she opened it for him, following him into the tiny room and closing it behind them.

A problem. He needed to make sure the door would open for him, because she wouldn’t be able to let him out and he could hardly be found with her.

Pretending to change his mind, James said, "I, uh, I don't think I can." He turned the door handle and the door opened into the alley.

"Aw, honey, come on. I'll be like your girlfriend."

As if convinced, James turned. "O-okay."

"Money first," she said, indicating the dresser.

James pulled out his wand. His hand trembled like Al's lips had. He shouldn’t do this.

*

His mouth was so close to Al's ear he could smell the bitterness of earwax. Al never did like to clean his ears.

"She didn’t even see it. She didn’t have time to. Her back was to me. The spell, Al, god, the spell, it hit her back like a spider web. She jerked forward, she tried to touch her back, like she wanted to feel it, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough, maybe. Or she just knew it was hopeless. Her last breath… it was so deep. Deep enough for three full lungfuls… I don't know. Where did the air go, then? She just… kept breathing in. She fell to her knees, hard. Something cracked. And then she just, she just fell over. She was cold so fast, Al. It was so cold in that little room. I sat with her, I knew it was the right thing to do. Until I was worried someone would come, since my time was long up. I touched her. Not like that, just… because it was the human thing to do. I didn’t see her eyes, Al. I didn’t think of it until after, but I didn’t see her fucking eyes. God, do you think she had a family? I mean, everyone does—but someone who loved her, someone she loves. Fuck, Al. What did I do? And I didn’t even get to see her fucking _eyes_."

*

Al was next. He needed it. They made it look like an accident. A shop assistant working late. He was on the ladder, pulling down a box of potions. They fell on him, burning him, his face. But James still got to see it, up close, the explosion.

And it was glorious.

*

The time after, James knew she had a family. He'd heard her on her mobile phone, telling a little sister to let her mum know she was on her way. She'd been walking from her job at a coffee shop in Muggle London. Muggles were really the better choice. Still, there wasn’t the same satisfaction, they were so helpless.

To balance that, though, was the delicious confusion when a spell hit them, that thrilling panic when their world was destroyed by something they just didn’t understand. The world was so much more horrible than most people knew, and the worst of it was, it was horrible _all the time_ —no one was safe. No one wasn’t beautiful when they died.

*

"Did you do it?" Al asked. He was sitting on James' bed as he almost always was when James got back.

He nodded.

Al sighed, a deep sigh that was so much more complicated than relief. "Did everything go okay?"

"Perfect." James adjusted his crotch and sat back against his headboard. It didn’t escape him that Al inched away just a little. "When you going again?"

"I… I don't know."

James kicked at Al's arm. "Want to hear about it?"

Looking at the floor—the drops of blood from Al's first adventure had long been spelled away yet they were there, they were there always—Al nodded.

James closed his eyes. There she was. Beautiful, this one. A risk because the beautiful ones are almost always missed more. There was more outrage, more investigation. She… James smiled. She had been worth the risk.

James talked. Al listened, lips parted, breath quick.

*

James could put it away. That was the only way he could explain why it wasn’t bothering him, why it seemed so normal. He could just… put it away, not think about it except when he was planning it, or when he was recalling it. It didn’t haunt his thoughts—why he was like this, how he'd gotten so sick. He didn’t dwell. It just _was_. He killed people. But he wasn’t evil. He loved his family, his friends. He tolerated his summer job, he flirted with Jeni in reception, he pissed and shit and wanked and ate slept fucked breathedcursedcried.

It made him sick sometimes. He would be lying in bed, reading or practising a new set of spells he'd been assigned at work, and it would hit him and he just couldn’t get away from it quick enough. It was like the truth of it was so vital, so overwhelming. He could never not be a murderer. It was forever. He vomited once. Then he learned to put it away.

He donned his long black robes and took a deep breath. Sometimes he tried to breathe like she had, that first. It never got deep enough. He opened his bedroom door but stopped fast.

"I knew it." The voice was small, shaky, accusing. "I heard you."

James' stomach turned to stone. "Lily," he began, his tone slow, placating. "What are you talking about?"

His little sister, his barely fourteen-year-old sister, pulled her eight-inch holly on him. Dragon heartstring.

He backed into his room as she seemed to want. Once in, she never took her eyes from him, closing his door. Then she lowered her wand. "Oh, James, I heard you. I _heard_ you. What's _wrong_ with you? How _could_ you?"

It hit James, hit him like he'd fallen from space into the truth. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. He could only shake his head. He figured he must look like Al had that first, first night. Horror lashed him. "Lily…"

Lily let her breath out in a rush. "Oh, my god, James, it's in my head!" She made a strangled sound in her throat, and her hands moved over her torso, down her thighs. She smiled, a twist of disgust and horrible, hideous _want_. "It's in my head," she hissed, stepping closer.

He saw the shop assistant in her eyes, not the melted face but the eyes, the eyes _after_.

No. Her eyes were brown, he told himself. It was the light. It was just the light.

"Lily," he said again. "I'm so sorry."

*

James watched in horror as Lily threw herself onto the dead body. She'd wanted it to be a woman, a slender woman, older than James usually went for.

"Lily," he whispered. "We have to get out of here."

"We're safe for a while," she said. With sickening tenderness Lily pushed the hair back from her victim's face. "It's okay."

He looked around them. They were in a field in Romania. He'd Apparated them for Lily's first time. He didn’t want anyone to see, anyone to know.

Lily pressed her lips, warm and full, to the motionless mouth of the supine corpse. She smiled down at the body, caressed her cheek. "She's lovely, isn’t she?"

James' stomach roiled and he retched.

*

"What did you do? Oh fuck, James, you're a monster!" Al shouted. Al wasn’t his anymore. Al hated him now, maybe hated that James hadn't kept it just for them.

But Lily… Lily loved him. She was not ungrateful.

*

The next time, James had to leave. He couldn’t… he couldn’t watch Lily any more.

*

At the funeral, James vowed things would be different now. He sat in the front row with Al, Al who would never forgive so many things. But this… this wasn’t because of him. Not this.

One of Lily's hands clenched their father's as they looked upon the casket.

Their mother's lips would live forever on Lily's.

"She…" Harry Potter breathed in, let it out. "She's lovely, isn’t she?"

"Yes, Daddy," whispered Lily. She turned to sit with James and Al. Her eyes… it was only the light… "She was lovely."

The end.


End file.
